172 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



on the coins the fire-altar, which is not of the king as suggested 



as 



the king, and I think Thomas is right in representing it (Sassa- 

 nians in Persia, p. 18) as "the small portable altar depicted 

 on the coins, which, as a portion of the religious paraphernalia, 

 formed so constant an accompaniment of regal processions and 

 royal progresses, from the days of Cyras the Great to those of 

 Yesdegird , who carried his revered fire in its fit receptacle even 

 in his last hasty flight before the conquering Arabs." 



On account of the veneration of fire the Persians have 

 often been called ** fire- worshippers." It would be equally 

 logical for Christians to be called " Cross- worshippers " after 

 the symbol of their faith. Even in early times Muhammadan 

 writers have endeavoured to defend the Persians from this 

 charge. The immortal Firdausi says in his Shah-nameh : 



"Say not that they (i.e. the Persians) were worshippers of 

 fare, they were worshippers of the Holy God." 



It will suffice to say that the Persians and their descen- 

 dants the Parsis do not worship fire as a divinity. Fire was 

 considered by Zoroaster as the purest symbol of the Divinity, 

 and is held by the Zoroastrians to be the emblem of refulgence, 

 glory and light, the truest symbol of God, the invisible Creator 

 of the universe. Therefore the observances paid to fire are very 

 prominent. r 



I must deal at some length on the monogram on the ob- 

 verse and the mint-name on the reverse of this coin, in con- 

 tinuation Of mv Wouinnc *,«*« 41 • » ^ ,>_ m 



corns of Hormazd IV in the sixth year of his reign. (Dorn, PI. 



»rwT\ g Vi '' i . mon °gram is composed of several letters 

 ana strictly speaking it is but a conventional representation of 



fhtT u fZU} Whi ? h lt has re P^ed. The interpretation of 

 infprnfJ a™ ^ U86d a g00d deal ot discussion, and has been 

 M&i m d - 1VerSe Way8 ^ Dorn (Bulletin Histor., 1843 and 

 3 ? ia u qU L 8 ' *; m ' 1857 )' Sfcick el (Handbuch der 

 mZfz nu P D v??^*' 1870 'P- 98 and following) ; Mordt- 

 sZUtr G \ll lI > XI1 ' XXXIV > P- 12 9) ; Thomas (Indo- 

 WWuSSl aTl898) 3 ' P ' 17); 3nd ^ouinVevu'eArcheologiqae, 



or aZurffl UtW ?°J P nder ^bwrau II, the word afzun, afzut 

 on the cotn f P R med b ? a mo ^g«-am, which is similar to that 



successors to H H T* Zd IV ' and ^s 'adopted as a rule by his 

 successors to the throne of V»* a \ a n „A f- a u,. „ii the 



governors 



preserved 



Drouin asks ns ^ hTV S l rU ? k C01n after fche Sassanian type, 

 thinks tSth dlst , ,ngU18h them separately but Mordtmann 

 tnmks that the second ,s only the degeneration of the first. 



